Detective Branch of Dhaka Metropolitan Police nabbed three students of two leading private universities with hallucinogenic drug Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) from the city on Wednesday night.
The arrestees were identified as Sadman Sakib Rupol, 25, and Ashab Wadud Turjo, 22, students of North South University, and Adib Ashraf, 23, student of Independent University Bangladesh.
AKM Hafiz Akhter, additional commissioner of police disclosed it while briefing media at the DMP Media Centre in the capital Dhaka.
He said this drug was seized for the first time in the country.
“We seized 200 strips of LSD imported from the Netherlands,” he said. According to him, the ongoing investigation into the death of Dhaka University student Hafizur Rahman led to the raid and the recovery of LSD drug for the first time in Bangladesh.
He, however, said that it is still under investigation if the drug had any role to play behind Hafizur's death whose throat-slit body was identified at the DMCH mortuary eight days after his death.
The gang has been active for the last one year in the capital city targeting upper-class clients, especially college and university students. The drug cartel has been using the heavily encrypted instant messaging app Telegram for marketing purposes while payments were made through Paypal mail, he added.
According to a DMP press release, the group used to sell LSD through a Facebook ID named "Apnar Abba" and a group called "Butter, Brownies and Beyond". Sadman Sakib Rupol would manage the group consisting of over one thousand members.
Sourced from the Netherlands, the drug entered the country in a parcel looking like a letter post stamp, a blot of which sells for Tk5,000-7,000.
Hafiz Akhter vowed that they will take the help of the International Criminal Police Organisation, commonly known as Interpol, to prevent the supply of this drug.
LSD, a synthetically made drug from lysergic acid found in "ergot fungus" that grows on rye and other grains, is commonly found in various forms, such as blotter paper, tablet or capsule form, liquid or cube form.
The drug has an effect on the brain that induces hallucinations. As a result, those who use this drug see things of different colours and shapes that do not exist in the world. The drug also enhances the functioning of all the nerves in the human brain.
